. >> and mitt just has this big smile on his fac and he looks at me and goes, "boy, however this turns out, this really makes it worth it." >> narrator: the race had been close. romney needed a great f performance. >> i don't think he had any idea what it was going to be like, because he had never done debates under that pressure. >> narrator: he'd gotten into the race because kennedy looked weak, beatable. >> at the time ted kennedy seemed vulnerable. it was a weak period for kennedy. he looked bad, he sounded bad, and in that way he was vulnerable. >> narrator: he was dramatically overweight. there had been trouble wit alcohol and women. he'd mortgaged his house to stay in the race. >> romney was everything ted kennedy was not.it you know, he had this clean family life. he was a really good speaker. he was really athletic and he had a good kind of campaign visage. >> people knew that he had gone to harva business school, had made a lot of money, been a registered independent up until not too long before he ran.es >> he ran as a liberal-to-moderate politician. he opposed newginggich's